Mauka (Toward the Mountains)
by easytodancewith
Summary: Pre-Danny/Steve. Remember the opening scene of 1x20, "Ma Ke Kahakai (Shore)," when Danny and Steve go on a hike together because they evidently don't spend enough time with each other at work? Yeah, this is a riff on that.


"This is not a hike, Steven," Danny blusters as he scrambles up an excessively overgrown Hawaiian hill and tries valiantly not to sound out of breath. "Your dad used to bring you up here when you were a kid?"

"Every year," Steve responds languidly, practically _strolling_ in his stupid cargo pants. He doesn't even have the decency to break a damn sweat.

Danny hates him.

"You know what?" A faraway look passes over Steve's face. "I remember the first time I beat my father to the summit. I remember it like it was yesterday."

Steve has that gleam in his eye, the one he gets when he's driving way too fast in the Camaro - which is, by the way, _Danny's_ car, even though Danny never gets to actually take the wheel because Rambo over there doesn't like to ride shotgun.

"All due respect, what's wrong with an old-fashioned baseball game, Steve, huh?" Danny asks, getting into his batting stance in the middle of the Ko'olau Mountain Range. He's pretty confident he looks utterly goofy, but he's trying to make a point, damn it.

"I've never been to a professional baseball game," Steve deadpans.

"That doesn't surprise me at all."

Danny shakes his head. They've been partners for a while now, but he's still trying - and mostly failing - to make sense of the enigma that is Steven McGarrett.

"I mean, how could…?" he begins, then trails off. "Forget about it. You know what? To each his own. We had the Yankees, you and your old man had, uh… I don't know what. Deep-sea demolition classes or something."

Steve really is ridiculous. There's a line, damn it - a requisite amount of uber-manly G.I. Joe-ness that every guy is allowed to have, and if any one of them exceeds more than his fair share, it makes everyone else look bad, so nobody does it, right? It's like an unspoken goddamn rule that everybody just agrees on. Only problem is that Steve must have been too busy doing a million push ups using only his pinkie fingers to hear about it, so he blasted past that line about fifty unsanctioned raids ago and threw the entire delicate balance out of whack. Jesus.

Danny wouldn't be surprised if Steve really had been an accomplished deep-sea demolition expert by Grace's age, if such a thing even existed - and if it didn't, Steve would have _made it so_ through sheer will, because that's the McGarrett way.

"Stop talking for a second," Steve says calmly. He gets to be all serene while Danny's still trying to catch his breath and, _God_ , Danny finds him annoying sometimes. "Look at this view."

The mountains sweep upward around them in broad, vivid strokes, resplendently verdant against the bright blue of the Hawaiian sky, the sun luminous through the clouds.

"This view," Steve continues, "this view has not changed one bit since I was a kid."

He has that faraway expression on his face again, nostalgia tinged with the pain of all that happened after. That whole bickering thing the two of them had going, the banter back and forth that had been in full swing ten seconds before seems wildly inappropriate now.

"Everything else has changed, but not this," Steve concludes somberly.

When Danny sees his partner's Adam's apple bob up and down, he feels as if he just walked in on Steve naked or something. Like, he's not supposed to be here for this. His strategic choice to casually position himself on top of a slight elevation in the landscape just to stand at eye level with Steve for _once_ suddenly seems juvenile, and he kind of - yeah, he kind of feels embarrassed, a little bit. Steve's not a bad guy. An adrenaline junkie, sure. A maniacal driver, definitely. A control freak? Oh, all day long, but he's not a bad guy.

"Change isn't always bad," he offers, unsure where this sudden earnestness to comfort Steve is coming from. Because change has worked out so well for Danny of late, right? His marriage went south, he needs to follow a damn schedule if he wants to see his own daughter, and, oh, yeah, let's not forget that he had to move to the _literal opposite side of the country_ to get a shot at spending any time with Grace at all, so... change? In Danny's book? Not so great.

Steve looks at him reproachfully. "Says you?" he queries. There's a hint of amusement in his voice, and one corner of his mouth lifts ever so slightly.

Danny squares his shoulders and shrugs. "You were about to have a moment there. I got no interest in having a moment with you, babe."

Steve really does smile this time - that dopey, disarming grin that infuriates and liquidates Danny all at once.

"Yeah, well, that's good, Danny, because I'm not offering," he says teasingly, with just enough lightness in his voice to make Danny wonder. He claps Danny on the back, then tilts his head toward the slope in front of them. "Remember the first time you beat me to the summit?"

Danny looks at him quizzically, and he takes off running, calling over his shoulder, "No, you don't, because it's never gonna happen."

The last word gets scooped up by the wind, carried away by Steve's momentum, and before Danny knows it, he's swallowing his own laughter and running after him, running after Steve stupid McGarrett, and he's not gonna beat Steve this time, and he doesn't really care.

 **xXx**


End file.
